#MeToo: Women share harrowing accounts of sexual assault, harassment

A powerful two-word social media campaign is revealing the scope of sexual harassment as thousands of people — mostly women — took to Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to share their personal accounts over the weekend.

The social campaign began with a tweet from actress Alyssa Milano, calling all who have experienced sexual harassment to respond with “Me too.” But the phrase is actually credited to Tarana Burke, a New York-based sexual assault, abuse and exploitation activist, who first coined it in 1996.

Brave women shouldn’t have to put dark moments of their lives on display so that we realize what a big problem sexual assault and harassment are. We should already know: for every #MeToo story, there was a man who knew that story. Men must own up and do better

In a statement last week, Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey also tweeted about the company’s efforts to tackle abuse after it faced criticism for suspending actress Rose McGowan’s account.

Twitter is proud to empower and support the voices on our platform, especially those that speak truth to power. We stand with the brave women and men who use Twitter to share their stories, and will work hard every day to improve our processes to protect those voices. 3/3